OCEANSIZE'S debut album "Effloresce" was and remains one of the greatest records of recent years. It showcased a band bleeding emotion, grand passion and epic aspiration who rubbished their detractors' usual jibes of being 'too proggy' with a series of monumental songs about the human condition and all its' frailties wrapped up in the band's three-pronged guitar attack, a supple and deadly rhythm section and riffs so frikkin' colossal Charles Atlas would need a lie down.
And the great news is that with its' long-awaited follow-up, the confidently-titled "Everyone Into Position", they've certainly not lost their touch. Clocking in at a generous 70 minutes, its' 10 tracks are once again complex, involved and oozing with intelligence AND subtlety as well as torrential brute force.
Indeed, Oceansize continue to excel in the light and shade department, and several of the record's biggest successes are significant sonic departures. Wonderfully cynically-titled opener "The Charm Offensive" gives you some idea of what to expect, with edge, stealth and economy the driving forces. Mike Vennart's lyrics are as personal as ever, and while the music itself is taut and defiant, his words are tinged with a disappointment ("we take this lying down and it burns us all out") we can all somehow relate to, even if it's difficult to grasp the specifics. It's a measure of Oceansize's ability that they keep THE RIFF on a tight rein and it only fixes bayonets and goes over the top as they succumb to an awesome crescendo charge at the end.
Elsewhere, there are further beautifully-gauged surprises. Excellent recent single "Heaven Alive" is the sound of Oceansize getting (whisper it) funky on us, with Jon Ellis's subterranean basslines and Mark Heron's dastardly offbeats inciting the band into a power play of some repute. "New Pin", meanwhile, dips a cautious a toe into squiggly electronica before the band slide in and "Mine Host" sets up a gentle, neo-ambient drift with the guitars and a churchy organ melding to perfection. Once again, a sense of loss is pervasive and this downbeat, languid track is both tremendously executed and about as close to a 'ballad' as Oceansize are liable to get.
|
Arguably even better, though, is "Music For A Nurse", which begins slow and mournful in a Six By Seven/ Mogwai sense and employs celestially melancholy guitars as it reaches for the distant stars. It features a supreme team effort and grasps for a hymnal burst of a climax that's every bit as epic as "Massive Bereavement" from "Effloresce."
None of which is to say Oceansize have gone soft in the volume department, mind. Indeed, tracks like "A Homage To A Shame" - with its' crushing, tanks-on-manoeuvre riffs and ambiguous lyrical content (e.g: "Oh that secret substance I crave/ is just another privelege I waive" - drug abuse anyone?) - gets sucked into an enormous whirlwind of sound; "No Tomorrow" positively bleeds with wired atmosphere before immolating in a firework display of sonic bravado and the stern, curiously moralistic "Y'Can't Keep A Bad Man Down" ("rest will come when you've pissed your last and burned the candle fast") is a seething cauldron of psych-prog delierance that inevitably spills over as the band pull out all the stops and more.
"Everyone Into Position", then, is once again the epitome of far-reaching, grandstanding greatness and a record that leaves the bantamweights at the door. It once again rewrites the rule book where 'epic' is concerned and makes it abundantly clear that only Muse are currently capable of touching them in terms of sheer visceral ambiton and daring execution. Providing you've got the staying power, go get without further ado.
|
